TODAY, it seems, anything can be called life-changing, whether it’s an anti-aging skin cream, a bum-boosting pair of jeans, a newly adopted pet or a lottery payout. It’s enough to render the expression meaningless. So I feel a little silly suggesting that Brian Levy’s cookbook “Good & Sweet” might be a life-changer.

But it did compel me to buy a new food processor after I’d sworn off that appliance for good. And it introduced me to an entirely new system of baking and developing recipes. It also showed me that sugar might be less essential than we think when it comes to baking and that when you opt instead for ingredients that are incidentally (and naturally) sweet, flavors become more pronounced. That means chocolate tastes more chocolaty, for example.

“How I think of it is I don’t use pure sugar. I use what I call ‘sweet ingredients’ because they’re things that bring more than just sweetness to the table,” Mr. Levy said. “They bring companions like fiber or starch or water—elements that have considerable effects on the structure of a recipe.”

Find recipe for Fudgy Chocolate Spoon Cake below.

Photo: Kristin Teig, Styling by Catrine Kelty

This approach rules out the more obvious sweeteners like granulated or brown sugar, but maybe more surprisingly, it jettisons honey, maple syrup, agave, jaggery, coconut and palm sugars, and cane sugar as well. Raw, unrefined or refined, “there’s not much difference chemically or nutritionally,” between cane sugar and those others, said Mr. Levy.

“‘I don’t use pure sugar. I use what I call “sweet ingredients” that bring more than just sweetness to the table.’”

As replacements, he goes for things that are as close to whole foods as possible—“which is to say, as unprocessed as possible,” he explained. “Mostly, just the water content has been removed to make it easier for me to work with.” Often, he’s working with dried fruits. There’s a nifty self-illustrated chart in the back of the cookbook that denotes the effects of fruits in each state of hydration—from driest (freeze-dried) to most liquid (juice)—on the finished product.

Dates (in multiple forms) appear most frequently in his recipes, but they’re not the only dried fruit he incorporates. Fresh fruit and fruit juice show up; so do fermented items such as sweet wines and miso paste; and nuts, which carry a sweetness of their own.

Grains and starches factor in, too; they can impart sweetness, complement the other ingredients and lend some flavor. Corn flour is not among them, however. A more effective (and sweeter) option, Mr. Levy figured out, is freeze-dried sweet corn. He grinds it to a powder and adds it to shortbread and tart dough, muffin batter and whipped cream. Other things that “do that work of making your brain think it’s tasting sweetness” include vanilla, brown butter and dairy in general.

Heavy cream accounts for some of the measured sweetness (or perception thereof) and for the light-as-air creaminess of Mr. Levy’s Milk Chocolate Mousse Clouds. The recipe combines unsweetened chocolate with just enough dates and prunes to bring out the cacao’s inherent fruitiness. It is a pure expression of chocolate and as mousse-y as mousse comes.

Find recipe for Milk Chocolate Mousse Clouds below.

Photo: Kristin Teig, Styling by Catrine Kelty

His Date, Rye & Olive Oil brownies are some of the most complex, richest brownies I’ve ever baked. The rye flour draws out the earthiness of the chocolate; the olive oil, its fruitiness. The Fudgy Chocolate Spoon Cake features teff flour, which “goes well with chocolate recipes and has a tea undercurrent,” Mr. Levy said. It is also gluten-free. One of my friends likened the soft, melty interior of the dessert to a soufflé and was not wrong.

In “Good & Sweet,” Mr. Levy writes, “This book is for people who, like me, love dessert, real dessert—cakes and cookies, custards and ice creams, tarts and crumbles—but who also care about their health and want to limit the amount of added sugars they mindlessly eat.”

That’s me. Maybe that’s you. Or maybe it’s someone you love. And if ever there was a time to bake for someone you love, it’s now, preferably with chocolate.

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